I'm outside the dealership with Shane after I have finished my bike delivery and walk around where I explain all the features, break-in, warm-up, initial services and general operation of his motorcycle. At the stop light in front of the shop at 55th & Pearl (both five-lane roads) two metric Harley-like v-twin knock-offs with new temp tags on them sit quietly burning fuel and quickly depreciating in resale while in the hands of their owners. One is being ridden by a lady. Both of them have shiney new made in China leather coats, full face helmets from Malaysia that have not yet been dropped of the motorcycle seats, and new riding boots & gloves from Pakistan.

Suddenly the Lady Rider starts acting frantically confused. Next thing I know she is backing the bike up in traffic and points it towards our drive-way at Boulder Harley. Then she starts waddling the thing over up the drive, her friend rides up behind her.

Still dealing with Chilli, I watch the goings-on as she gets off the bike and looks at it, tries some things and keeps turning the bike over nut yet not getting it started. The guy she is with doesn't even dismount and merely sits next to her on his shiney new Yamaha V-something now worth another $100 less than when it was at the stop-light.

I am torn between running inside to make a Kodak moment of the NEW Yamaha broke down in front of a Harley dealer, and merely talking to the lady to see if I can call her a wrecker.

The gentleman in me wins. I stroll over and inquire:

HOGr: What's wrong?

Lady Rider: it just quit all of a sudden.

Manly Yamaha man: yeah, for no reason.

HOGr : Does it have gas?

Lady Rider: I dunno

Manly Yamaha man: We haven't filled them up yet, we just got them.

Lady Rider: (getting back on her shiney depreciating knock-off) Can you tell I am a new rider?

HOGr: (silent)

I try to remove the gascap, it's locked. Lady Rider fuddles to get the key out of her ignition while Manly Yamaha Man sits on his shiney new Yamaha V-something now worth another $200 less than when it was at the stop-light. I help her get the key out, which is rather hard to reach from the bike seat, and attempt to get the cap off. This takes about $50 worth of depreciation before we get it open. The tank has a splash of gas in it.

HOGr: I think if you flip it on reserve you can ride it to the gas station down the road and you should be fine.

Lady Rider: Reserve?

HOGr: (silent)

I notice the fine Japanese engineers that designed this knock-off were so busy putting a beefy exaggerated fat-bob style gas tank on this 800cc scooter that they missed noticing an average rider can barely reach the shutoff/reserve, even if they knew where it was. I point out her petcock and flip it over, put the key back in the ignition and hit the starter. It rolls a few times, depreciates another $50, then quietly starts up.

Lady Rider: Wow, thanks. Did I tell you I was a new rider?

HOGr: (pointing out the petcock to Manly Yamaha Man on his Manly 1800cc Royal Star Roadstar that just depreciated another $100) You two should practice something when riding on back roads with no traffic. Learn to reach down and flip from ON to RESERVE so that when you are on I-25 in 6 lanes of traffic with semis all around and you run out of gas, you don't slow down and try to get off the road to do this. It should be second nature.

Lady Rider to Manly Yamaha Man: Wow, our salesman never told us any of this. We should have bought our motorcycles from this guy.

HOGr: (smiling) Yes, yes you should have.

With that they rode off on bikes now each worth $450 less than they paid for them this morning and probably even more deflated egos than they had when they pulled into the Harley dealership on new Yamahas.

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